Building and Area Greening - Instruments and Strategies for Implementation and Activation in Municipal Climate Change Adaptation
Current News
From 21 - 23.3.23 the Hydrology Day 2023 took place under the title "Sustainable Water Management - Regional and Global Strategies" at the Ruhr-University Bochum.
The ISB was represented with 2 poster contributions on our projects "GoGreen" and "Rainwater Living Lab Aachen" in the session "Urban Hydrology".
Poster Contribution - GoGreen [.pdf]
Poster Contribution - Rainwarter Living Lab Aachen [.pdf]
Initial Situation
Especially for cities the consequences of climate change like summer droughts, heavy precipitation events and urban heat island effects constitute a challenge. In order to minimize consequences for residents, green urban areas (plants and animals), buildings and transport infrastructure, adaption measures for the mentioned impacts are necessary. In densely populated urban areas the extension of building and site area greenings is a useful adjustment measure to reduce climate change related effects. This represents a suitable measure to reduce heat stress as well as water retention. Projects dealing with roof and facade greening already exist all over Germany (e.g. Dickhaut et al. 2017; Brune et al. 2017), however, so far, there is still a lack of analysis of the decision-making framework of users (see Minn, 2021). In addition, related projects are rarely implemented to the extent necessary (e.g. UBA-Forschungsauftrag BauGB-Novellen). Without an actual implementation, all climate adaption strategies remain ineffective.
Objective and Goals
The project’s goal is to collect effective instruments as well as to develop and test strategies for the feasibility of greening up buildings and sites. Thereby the proportion of climate-relevant green spaces can be increased and so far, unused potentials for sustainable adaption to climate change can be activated. For this in particular, obstacles which stand against an implementation and possible solutions to overcome them are going to be presented. Motivation for self-initiative as well as voluntary commitment of various stakeholders are going to be seen as central components. Therefore, the project’s focus is on the study of motivation and acceptance factors of different target groups (owners, investors) as well as on the process of communication and participation.
As a result of the project, a concept to increase climate adaption potentials in terms of building and land greening in Aachen and Eschweiler will be developed. Moreover, the implementation of prioritized measures will be realized. In terms of transferability, the results are available nationwide.
Contents and structure of the project
Methods
In order to achieve the objectives of the project, various qualitative social research methods will be used to identify and evaluate factors, which are necessary for the successful implementation of measures for the greening of buildings and site areas. For and in collaboration with the two cities of Aachen and Eschweiler a target group-specific modular design for the three defined areas of action “green roofs, “facade greening” and “front gardens and other green spaces” with interdisciplinary measures as well as a system for estimating the intensities of impact will be developed.
The project GoGreen focuses on a special segment of measures which also have to be supported by the contribution of citizens and companies. The aim is to analyze and evaluate options for activating citizens, businesses and other stakeholders as well as funding possibilities for the measures.
Afterwards, an implementation schedule tailored to the two municipalities will be drawn up which will include on the one hand a selection and prioritization of the measures and on the other hand a communication and organization strategy and selected measures will be exemplary implemented in form of a “real laboratory”. This is primarily to provide support in testing and evaluating the participatory approach.
Funding
As part of the "Deutsche Anpassungsstrategie an den Klimawandel" (German strategy for Adaption to climate change) the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) supports municipal pioneering projects and the establishment of local and regional cooperations.
Funding Code
67DAS231A
Project Sponsor
Zukunft - Umwelt - Gesellschaft (ZUG) gGmbH supports the Federal Ministry for the Environment in achieving its funding policy objectives.
Project Partners
City of Aachen
Fachbereich Umwelt (environment department)
Reumontstr. I 52064 Aachen
www.aachen.de
City of Eschweiler
Stabstelle nachhaltige Entwicklung (sustainable development)
Johannes-Rau-Platz 1, 52249 Eschweiler
www.eschweiler.de
Duration of the Project
02.2022 - 08.2025